context (art miami basel 2016)

As a special feature we are pleased to announce the US-debut of the emerging conceptual - and performance artist
Mia Florentine Weiss (born 1980) with her ambigram sculpture LOVE / HATE and her first catalogue entitled
WEISS featuring the last decade of Weiss´s work.
Can art save the world? Are there still places of reason, understanding, lingering, tranquility, home? Can hate turn
into love? Artist Mia Florentine Weiss will ask these questions at CONTEXT Art Miami (Gallery Friedmann-Hahn,
Booth #202) with her rotatable installation LOVE / HATE, that is currently installed (118 x 276 inches) in front of
one of the most reknown museums in Germany (Senckenberg Museum, Frankfurt/Main).
Mrs. Weiss developed the lettering of the sculpture in 2000 together with a monk in a monastery near her home in
Germany. Based on the old font type “Sütterlin” she created an anagram effect that becomes visible when the
sculpture is in rotation or mirrored. This extraordinary work of art symbolizes the coincidence of opposites
(coincidentia oppositorum). Just as life and death or light and shadow coexist there is no love without hate.
The oeuvre of the Berlin-based artist includes various artistic disciplines like installation, performance, photography
and poetry. It can be seen as a symbol for the current political times. Especially the wars and the refugee crisis but
also the fight for women´s rights strongly inform her work. By displaying two contrary, binary word symbols she
directly confronts the spectator with the multiple (mis-) use associated with these terms. Her conceptual approach
refers to the Language based art of the 1960’s, questioning the more traditional skills such as painting and sculpture,
translating it into the NOW. The LOVE / HATE sculpture of Weiss is a Zeitgeist-sign that developed further the
iconic LOVE statue by Robert Indiana into a new diverse dimension of contemporary art in the 21st century.